MONEY LAUNDERING TRADECRAFT; IT'S ALL ABOUT PERMUTATIONS AND COMBINATIONS

During the decade that I was a career money launderer, I often stayed up nights and weekends to brainstorm. The object of this thought process, which is to create a new money laundering technique which will not be easily recognized by either compliance officers or law enforcement investigators, was my central goal. If my adversaries do not conclude that a specific set of facts is, in truth and in fact, a money laundering operation, rather than normal commercial activity, the odds are it will neither be interdicted in real-time, nor subsequently exposed in subsequent analysis.

What one does is take an existing method, which has been successfully used in the past, and either modify it to further increase its changes of success, while in the process disguising it further, or apply it to an industry or business not previously known to be a target of laundrymen. The result is basically, old wine in new bottles, which generally results in a new category of technique, and one which compliance officers will not recognize, and therefore not red flag as potential criminal activity.

Why is this important to understand? Because if a compliance officer is not familiar with the full gamut of advanced money laundering methods in use, he or she will miss the modified technique as simply a new version of an old trick. The new method will be dismissed as some sort of legitimate variation on everyday commerce. One must have acquired the skill set of all the esoteric and obscure techniques to be able to pick up those clever modifications on a theme. You see, it's not about your imagination, it's all about how you are able to see how your opponent has adapted the techniques in his existing tool box in a new way, to fool you into ignoring them. Learn the full spectrum of what has already been used by the laundrymen,so that you can spot their permutations, and thereby respond to new challenges. Continually expand your knowledge to meet new challenges head on.